


Itching For It

by Cluegirl



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: M/M, preslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-12
Updated: 2010-08-12
Packaged: 2017-10-11 01:45:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/106953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cluegirl/pseuds/Cluegirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A stakeout, a werewolf, a potion, poison ivy, and Shakespear quotes.  What more reason does a ficlet need?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Itching For It

**Author's Note:**

> September challenge for Challenge_fic  
> Theme: cabin fever, using the word 'dexterous', along with a quote from Hamlet.  
> If it's any consolation, I got better...

"What exactly were you thinking, Potter?"

"I was thinking if I had to stay locked up in that shack for one more second, I was going to wind up in Azkaban for inventing a new Unforgivable on you, Snape!" Harry followed him out of the snow, red of face and rumpled. "Why the hell were you following me?"

Snape raised an eyebrow and went to check his cauldron. "A little gratitude, if you please, Potter. I did save your life again, after all."

"Saved my life?" Harry snarled, scratching his neck, "You snuck up on me in the middle of a complex summoning spell and shoved me into a pile of weeds! How is that saving my life?"

"Oh, and the werewolf somehow fails to factor into your notice, Potter?" Snape glared.

"What did you think the bloody summoning was FOR?" Harry stripped off his lumpy red jumper and hurled it at the wall, "Lycanthrope fur is on your list of ingredients isn't it?"

Snape pointed at the bubbling cauldron. "It went in three days ago, Potter, which you would have known, had you paid attention. Will you stop that writhing? What's wrong with you?"

"Three days ago, Snape," Harry snarled through clenched teeth, "was when the ghasts attacked. I was rather preoccupied. And I'm scratching my back, if it's any of your business. There's still some damned weeds... or something...must've gotten down my jumper..." He jerked and twisted, rutching his shirt up over his flat stomach in an effort to reach between his shoulder blades.

Snape watched, a little dry-mouthed at the flash of skin, but thought he hid his distraction rather well...until Potter wrenched the undershirt off with a strangled cry. _Oh my stars and gartersl!_

"Argh!" Cried Potter, backing up to the doorframe and heaving against it like a bear. That was enough to break the spell. Snape seized Harry's shoulder and whirled him away from the wall. "OI!" the young Dark Arts Professor objected.

"Oh, be still, you infant, let me look." A puffy, scarlet rash marched across the elegant curves of his back, radiating more heat than the fireplace. _What on earth? Oh hells, he was beside the split elm! And he fell to the west...Oh Merlin's balls, he's going to kill me!_

Potter groaned, twitching under his gaze, clearly exhausting his willpower to keep still. Snape swallowed hard, hooked a finger through the man's belt loop, and pulled down the waist to look. No rash there, but the delicately dimpled sacrum warranted a longer look, he thought.

Potter, evidently, did not agree. "Oxfam's y-fronts, white. No need to stare."

"You need to stop scratching it. You'll only make it worse." Snape tried to sound nonchalant. It didn't work. Potter whirled, one arm scrabbling over his shoulder, green eyes glaring at the almost-contrite Potions master. For all the years Snape had delighted in public declarations of Potter's mental incompetence, it really was quite startling how quickly he could leap to the correct conclusion.

"YOU PUSHED ME INTO POISON IVY?!"

"Not on purpose..."

The only thing that saved him was that Potter's wand was still in the sleeve of his jumper. Even so, Snape barely managed to fire off his _petrificus totalis_ before Potter's hands closed on his throat.

"I've got something for that," Snape said, hauling the rigid, half-naked young man upright and dragging him to the corner, "so there's no call for dramatics." Snape patted Harry's face as he propped him up next to the supply cabinet, "It was an honest mistake, after all."

"Bull...shit!" Potter managed through the spell. "You...bast...ard!"

"Snow and darkness do tend to interfere with botanical identification, Potter." Snape sighed, tugging open the cupboard, "I'll set you right in a moment though. Now let's see... There's Rosemary, that's for remembrance." Snape mused, sorting through the bottles on the shelf, "and there is Pansies, that's for thoughts. You'll not need that, will you, Potter?"

"Sod you."

"Ah. There's Fennel for you, and Columbines." He put two bottles on the table, "There's Rue for you, and here's some for me, we may call it herb of grace." He turned then, salve in hand, and unable to keep the smirk off his face as he imagined rubbing it all over Potter's bronze skin, "O, you must wear your Rue with a difference though."

Harry's expression went from plain outrage to a passable imitation of a Slytherin Death Glare. "Shakespear," he ground, trembling with the effort, "I'm about to scratch myself to death, and you're quoting Shakespear at me? You really ARE a sadistic bastard!"

"Words, words, words." Snape replied with a chuckle, moving entirely too close – so close his breath raised gooseflesh along Potter's neck, "I'd credit your protests rather more, if your fly-buttons weren't about to shoot across the room," Snape indulged himself in a shadow caress, milimetres above the pulsing throat, the iron-hard curve of jaw, pink-shell ear. And Potter, feeling the proximity, but not the contact, shivered and closed his eyes – wordless welcome if ever Snape saw such.

Still, it didn't do to go where he wasn't wanted, so Snape backed away, watching the cool air chill Potter's nipples to attention. He held Potter's fevered emerald gaze and slowly uncorked the jar, dipping two long, dexterous fingers into the salve. "So then, Potter, if you're tired of that itch, I believe I may be equipped to soothe it for you."

The younger man's jaw twitched, and then spread into a feral grin. "You cannot, sir," Potter growled, "take from me any thing that I will more willingly part withal. You bastard!"

The End


End file.
